Test Drive: 2013 Honda Accord Sedan Touring

As for the interior, the first thing that comes to mind is spaciousness. This car is downright large, even if this continues to be considered the mid-size class. Front seat thrones are spacious and your passenger is almost an arm’s length away. The back seat is almost disorienting in its cavernous, lounge-like, stretch-out-and-cross-your-legs spaciousness, with headroom all the way across. While the trunk seems to narrow towards the cabin, it can still swallow my hockey bag right up to the back of the seats, leaving the equivalent of a whole other trunk behind it.

The interior is also thoughtfully designed, imparts a sense of quality, and all the controls are easy to decipher and take little to no time to get used to. The look itself is very conservative, but so well executed that it fades into neutral background so quickly that you’re not likely to get turned off by it.

The amenities show that Honda is finally catching up in the gizmo race, with my $31,590 Touring Sedan (tack on $1,640 for freight and then add taxes to your total) serving up HondaLink (audio touchscreen), HandsFreeLink bilingual Bluetooth service, proximity keyless entry and push-button start, 8.0-inch multi-info display and smaller secondary audio display (though we had a recent exchange with a couple colleagues on Twitter decrying Honda’s use of screen space—lots of wasted space, but not even displaying the full band name), satellite-linked navigation system with 3-D map display. Honda is even getting in on the driving aids, with back-up camera, lane departure warning, forward collision warning, but the best of them was the LaneWatch blind spot display.

LaneWatch, standard on EX-L trims and above, features a camera mounted under the passenger-side mirror that displays an image of your passenger-side blind spot on the large, dash-mounted display whenever you engage the right turn signal. Simple, yet frankly, we found it brilliant. Instead of all the flashing lights, pulsing steering wheels and seats, and audible chimes served up by other brands, you get a direct view of the blind spot—effectively cutting out the computer-analysis middleman. Not only that, but it will also show cyclists or pedestrians approaching on that side as you prepare for a right turn. And while not in its listed benefits, my sister-in-law found it made parallel parking a cinch because she could see the curb and wheels directly on screen rather than estimating—if I had the car for longer, I would use it for that, too—I’m terrible at parallel parking, but too impatient to use the self-parking functions on cars like the Ford Fusion and Escape, Toyota Prius, various BMWs and others.

2013 Honda Accord Sedan Touring. Click image to enlarge

The 2013 Honda Accord sets a new standard for understated redesign, and it already blends into the sea of anonymous, conformist sedans on the roads. But that being said, I can’t think of many objections to the handsome if plain sedan—owners will likely appreciate the finer details like squared-off HID headlight projectors and classic sedan profile without all the fussy creases, angles, and compromised visibility. Honda is no doubt willing to give up on the audience looking for flashy designs first, in favour of a solid content proposition and an essential goodness and balance of efficiency and performance, space and content, and the old Honda driving magic.